Memory is one of the fundamental tools in the learning process. However, there is a significant difference between memorizing something and learning it. Then, how can undergraduate students go to the level where they understand something well? How can teachers facilitate understanding?
In my own opinion, they can only reach this point by continuously seeking more information to complement what the lecturers give to them in class. They can try to read more in regard to what was given to them by their lecturers/teachers.
Thank you
Olutosin
Dear Tefera.
You ask an interesting and challenging question;
How can undergraduate students get to the point where they understand something well and how can teachers facilitate understanding?
As I see it, to understand and to memorize are two distinct forms of learning. To memorize is, say, rote learning. When this is case, we don't really master what we have learnt and it is likely that the acquired information and knowledge does not endure for long, nor is it transfered to contexts or domains different from the initial one. In the end, rote learning is no significant learning. In Piagetian terms, in rote learning, no assimilation/accommodation occurs. In contradistinction, to really understand is to reinvent and reconstruct what was learnt. When this is the case, we can speak of significant learning. Almost by definition, significant learning endures for long and is transfered to domains different from the initial one. We can say that rote learning is the case when teachers appeal to the traditional or conservative methods of education, whose main goal is to transmit to students ready made and established truths and make them conformist people. In contrast to this, in the active methods of education teachers are more mentors and organizers of learning experiences and situations than simple transmitters of knowledge such that their students come to be able to reinvent and and reconstruct what they learn and be creative and innovative people. In a nutshell, teachers facilitate true understanding, not rote learning, when they appeal to the active methods. For students to go to the level where they understand something well they should not only store information and knowkedge in their minds/brains, but mainly, for example, to actively organize and structure it in significant chunks. In this case students learn how to learn, not only how to learn, As I see it, rote learning makes me think, say, of indoctrination. Understanding makes the think of active students that actively reivent and reconstruct what they learn. For this to be case, students should go, say, beyond the information given to them by their teachears and get more information and organize it in overarching structures
I hope I has got your points and that this helps.
Warm regards,
Orlando
I prefer that the university teacher plays the role of " the guide on the side" rather than the role of "the sage on the stage". There has to be a variety of activities & interactions to ensure that the students have really understood what the lecture was about. When some of them question about something, the teacher will better direct these questions to other students. The ensuing discussion will be great in weighing how much the"asker" , the"answerer", and the"listener" have learnt. Words of praise , from the guide,will surely motivate students to learn & to understand what they have learnt.
I do not count that much on memorizing. Most of my tests, in 33 years of service at my university, have targeted the brains of the students to find out what capacities they have gained from my courses. I have been kept under pressure, by the students, to prepare very easy exams for them but I was unyielding because this is betrayal , to say the least.
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